Miss Missy
Crocodile Machie

Chapter Eleven
Nadine

A/N Ha. Yall thought all that 'case closed' business meant the story was over. Well you're wrong. It never was, despite the hiatus. I've got a bit of free time at the moment so we're gonna have another chapter! It's a bit of a shortie, I think, but we're ready to move along to the next act. Enjoy!

"You're lucky to be alive," Roxanne huffed as she changed the bandages on my hand. It was the first I'd been spoken to in what I reckoned was four days.

"I don't know if I'd use 'lucky' to describe how I feel about any of this." My voice was hoarse and dry, and I coughed a little. "Can I have some water?"

"You can come out and get it yourself."

"What about Cole? You just said I'm lucky he hasn't killed me yet... Why hasn't he killed me yet?"

Roxanne shook her head and removed the last of the bandages. I hadn't looked at my hand yet, mostly because I was sort of sedated for a while. I still couldn't bring myself to look at it now. And I hadn't seen Cole since he took my finger.

"He up and left, after he rested for a bit. Mitch's orders. How a girl like you can cause so much damage, I don't know. He's called, says he'll be back tonight."

"He hasn't been here in four days?"

"Five. Tonight makes it six."

Six days. I drove him out for six days. But why was I still alive? Why did he only take my finger, not my life? My finger... At least it was the left one. As Roxanne put new medicine and gauze on it, I marveled at how sore it was. I felt bruised. All over. My stomach ached from where Roxanne hit me, but my ankle felt better than it had since I first got the injury. I guessed the casting was doing its job.

Roxanne stood and took my hand to lead me from my room. I only just then noticed the appearance of a lamp in a corner. It made sense - bandaging me in the dark wouldn't have been easy. I turned it off with my good hand as we left and she brought me to the living room. I moved into the kitchen while she sat down on the couch, though it looked more like sinking into it, and turned on the TV. The nasally voice of Spongebob made me laugh out loud but I stifled it. The laugh didn't sound like mine anymore.

I stared at the cabinets, absently cradling my left hand to my chest. If this were my kitchen, where would I keep the cups? I guessed to the right of the sink, but those shelves held the plates and bowls. One cabinet to the right held cups, mostly plastic but a few glass. I took the biggest plastic cup, filled it with water, and downed almost half of it all at once. I refilled it and walked into the living room, careful not to put too much weight on my bad foot, and took a seat by Nadine.

"- - and locals gathered outdoors despite immense heat to mourn the loss of Miss Missy Reid, kidnapped seven weeks ago. Police say sufficient evidence was received to declare the soon-to-be high-school senior deceased - - a video retreived after crashing Cheif Burke's phone, and a single finger matching Missy Reid's known DNA. Police have no leads on who the kidnapper and murderer might be, despite countless tips and a description from the deceased's boyfriends, Chief Burke's son, Tommy. When approached for comment, young Burke said the following."

The image of the overly-made-up blonde in a jet-black jacket sitting cozily in the news studio cut to my Daddy. He was in a suit, walking up the hill on Church Street to the cemetery. He held a small mahogany box in his hands, and I could hear several reporters shouting questions at him as he led what looked clearly to be a funeral procession. Above the voices of the newsman came clearly the questions, "Does that box contain the severed finger of your daughter, Mr. Reid? Turn around and open it up so we can get a good look, would you?"

Tommy came onto the screen, his anger and sadness so strong I could almost reach out and touch the emotions. He yanked a microphone close to his mouth and gave the reporters a good telling-off.

'Can't you see the man is suffering?' he growled. 'His daughter is dead. His daughter. George and Meryl's grand-daughter. The best painter in this town. Cheryl's best friend. My girlfriend. She's gone, and we're trying to make peace with that, and I hope you go home ashamed of yourselves tonight. Approach any one person at this funeral and I'll have my father after you for harassment.'.

"Strong words from a weakened heart," said the blonde as the screen cut back to her.

"Turn it off, Roxanne," I said, choking on the words.

We sat in silence. I wondered what video had been sent to Thomas's dad that proved I was dead, especially since I was sitting there breathing. I wondered what was in that box, and if it really was my finger, how did it get clear up to Brighton? When was that footage shot, and why was Thomas already so keen to move on and 'make peace' with my fake death? Was my little plot in the cemetery marked with a little headstone? Was it in the north corner, under that weeping willow I loved, and the little daisy patch I planted in third grade? Next to the little cross that marked my mother's grave? It felt strange, mourning my own death.

"I didn't know you were a painter," Roxanne said quietly after a while.

I stared at my hands, still in my lap, as I answered. "Best in the county, three years running at the fair. Always in the top three since I first entered in middle school. My best.... My best friend, Cheryl.... She used to say she wished she could get her hands on a rainbow the way I could."

When I finally looked at her I saw she'd been staring at me. Her eyes were full of water, despite the fact that I could see tears had already been running down her face.

"Oh, Roxanne... What am I going to do? Even if I could escape, my whole town thinks I'm dead. I can't just walk back into that after they've already started mourning me.... I don't have a place in the world. I'm all... alone!"

I was crying too, now, out of nowhere. Roxanne wrapped her arms around me and made comforting sounds. When I calmed down enough, she surprisingly had a decent answer.

"You do have a place. It's here. As Nadine. These men of ours, Mitch and Cole, they don't want to cause pain. It's a means to an end. They just want us. Cole chose you, out of all the women in the world. You. And there's something to be said for that. You're beautiful and smart and obviously talented. If he wants you to be his trophy wife, well, why not be? If you just do what he wants, you'll get a home, and food, and family. It's not happening the way you thought it would when you were a girl, but it's happening. You can fight it and end up dead, or you can be like me and choose to live this new life, and you'll really love it if you do. You know, it could be a fairytale here, if you let it be."

I sniffed and searched her eyes. I was supposed to find my fairytale with Thomas Burke. I was supposed to go to art school and sell my paintings. But Tommy thought I was dead. He was moving on. Maybe he'd date Anna Perry, on the cheer team. He'd take her to prom and follow her to state college and forget all about me. That small town would shrink in on itself until there was no memory of me. The only place for me to exist was here.

Did I really have no choice? Did I really have to fit in here, and make this trailer, where so much damage had been done, my home?

I stood up, drank the rest of my water, and adjusted the sleeping dress I was in.

"You said Cole's coming home tonight?" I asked. "What time?"

"Yes, he'll be home around eight, if he makes good time. Mitch'll be over to check on him, around nine."

I nodded and said, "I don't suppose you can teach me how to make anything better than Spaghettios with what's in this kitchen, can you?"

She jumped up and pulled me to the kitchen, suddenly switched back into her normal, chipper self, and tied an apron around me. As she riffled through the cookbooks, paying extra attention to the dog-eared pages, I tried to smile. I was making dinner for the man who cut my finger off. He would either forgive me, and I'd get to live a life I'd never have chosen before, but a life nonetheless; or he'd finish what he started and kill me. But maybe, just maybe, these few hours until he came home would be enough time for me to make some sort of peace with the life I lived.

So either way, I would choose to become Nadine, if only for a few short hours.

Either way, tonight Miss Missy Reid would die.

A/N SEEE?!? She's not dead!! And perhaps Cole will let us out of all this violence and let us get to some romance already. Or maybe he'll just kill her and pick another girl he won't have to work so hard to break. You won't know unless you give me some freaking reviews for incentive to write chapter twelve! Don't you make me do another hiatus!!